Cabin Crafted

Category: Fiber Arts and Equipment

  • Happiness and sadness

    I am happy for the most part today. Last night I finished the knitting and cross stitched tag for the newest grandson’s Christmas stocking. It needs to be steam blocked and the lining made and sewn in.

    I’m happy today because we drove a couple hours to the Skyline Drive and met up with Son 1 and Grandson 1 and had a socially distanced, masked visit, and picnic in the woods. We hadn’t seen them in person since last Christmas and miss them terribly. The grandson is now 15 and taller than his 6’1.5″ tall Granddad, but he hasn’t caught up with his Dad yet. It was a chance to take them some of the pickles and salsas that I canned for them and to deliver part of their Christmas gift that we couldn’t mail. We are going to try again in about a month and do another meet up. The time on the road was so worth it.

    The drive to and from gave me some spindle spinning time as hubby drove the interstates and while we sat on picnic tables to visit.

    Sadness, because we are approaching two holidays where our family tries to gather and won’t this year. We learned today that DIL’s 90some year old grandmother had passed during this pandemic with Covid but we just found out today. I will have to send her Mom a note.

    Slowly, through local artisan shopping and online shopping, gifts are being gathered to be wrapped for family members for local delivery to daughter and her kiddos, mailed to the sons and their families. What a different year this will be. Son 1 and his family got me a native bee house to put up in the spring. I enjoyed watching the native bees in the garden this year and look forward to seeing if they occupy the house and produce baby bee families to enjoy the flowers in the gardens. More flowers will be planted in the new walled garden bed next year to expand the options for them. The more flowers available will bring more bees and butterflies.

  • Pre Freeze Salvage

    Yesterday was in the 70’s and pouring rain from Zeta going just south of us. In the afternoon it partially cleared with some sun peeking out, a gorgeous nearly full moon last night until just after 9 p.m., then the wind kicked up and it poured again as the front moved through to drop the temperature into the mid 40’s where it is staying under thick cloudy skies today. Tonight it is going down to around 30 f. The peas have pods and they can take that cold if it isn’t too windy. The peppers and ground cherries won’t, even covered. After a run out to grab drive thru lunch and go to pick up my sewing machine that was kindly repaired by a friend’s Mother-in-law, a former “Home Ec” teacher, I pulled up my hood on my wool, grabbed a basket, clippers, and sheets of plastic and headed to the garden.

    The fig was covered again, the figs still aren’t ripe and may not ever ripen, but I’m going to keep hoping. The peas were covered to protect them from the wind tonight. The pepper plants stripped of all the ripe Thai’s, all of the Serranos and the Jalapenos. The still green Thai’s were cut in branches and all brought in. I am a popsicle, though I need to go do a better cover job on the peas.

    The basket was sorted, the ripe Thai peppers will be strung, the ripe Serranos were strung, the Jalapenos and still small green Serranos will be pickled, maybe a few chopped and frozen for winter use.

    The green Thai peppers still on the branches were strung across a rod and hung over two hooks in the windows on the north side of the utility room to ripen or dry green. As they ripen, I will pull them and string them. The red Thai peppers become the crushed red peppers and used whole in stir fry, ground to make chili powder as a substitute for cayenne. As there will be 8 or 9 strings of them, Son 1’s family will get a couple for their use. They had a new garden this year, but somehow ended up with mild Jalapenos, mild Habeneros, and very hot Ghost Peppers, so some hot peppers will be welcome in their household.

    This morning, I emptied my 4th spindle onto the bobbin of singles and chain plied the yarn on the bobbin. I haven’t measured it out yet, but it is 7 WPI so Aran or Bulky weight, a good weight for a Monmouth style hat. And while my spindles were idle, I decided on November’s spinning challenge fiber.

    The two Aegeans, the larger two will be used to spin the “Apple Picking” braid of Merino/Baby Camel/Mulberry Silk. The Honduran Rosewood Finch will work on the Alpaca/Coopworth fiber that is white and burgundy and I want to learn to ply on the fly with it. The Olive wood Finch will continue on the rare breed mixed Jacob. I want to end up with enough of it to make a Monmouth hat and a pair of fingerless gloves. I had decided that those 4 spindles were enough to keep me busy when the Jenkins group posted a pop-up lottery of 11 Masur Birch spindles and two of them are Aegeans in the weight I like, so needless to say, I put my name in for the two I would like a chance to purchase. The drawing will be Monday. If I get lucky, I will have to decide if I want to keep all three or let one go, that is going to be a difficult decision because I love the two I have.

    In the meantime, I will knit on grand daughter’s sweater. The sleeves need another inch plus then knitted on to the body and continue on up to the neck and the hood. When it is done, the Christmas stocking for Son 2’s youngest born January 5 needs to be made. Each grand gets a Grandmom made stocking for their first Christmas.

  • I Fibbed a little

    and my obsessive compulsive side partially won. As I pulled the rough, quick, down and dirty basket down off of the refrigerator to take out a couple potatoes tonight, I decided I couldn’t live with it that way. Not having a finishing rim on it and the ovalish shape, bothered me. I had plenty of the thicker reed that is flat on one side and curved on the other, and I didn’t like the tall handle that was disproportionate to the diameter of the basket. While waiting for the oven to heat, I soaked a piece of the thick reed and a couple strands of chair caning reed, cut the handle off level with the top of the basket, bent the heavier reed around the basket and anchored it on with the caning reed.

    Still far from perfect, but I’m happier with it, it is more round, more rigid, refilled with potatoes and covered back with the tea towel on the top of the refrigerator.

    Only two hens are laying, two Olive eggers, so all eggs are green and have good hard shells. With the extended free range time, the yolks are dark orange, firm and round, but because they are feasting on grass seed and insects all day, they don’t want to go to the safety of the run before we let the dogs out to run.

    Another basket of peppers were picked and strung yesterday. There are at least 100 ground cherries, but they are all too small to pick and it is going down to 31f Friday night, so I guess this isn’t the year that I get to try them. I will plant early next year. The pepper plants will be pulled Friday afternoon and hung upside down in the garage so the remaining peppers will ripen. The peas will be covered with plastic in hope for some fresh peas as the daytimes will still be mild.

    The bees were busy on the marigolds, the only flowers still blooming except for one errant Stella day lily.

    The lawn area should be mowed one last time before freezing nights. That means purchasing more fuel and pumping up the tire again. It may get done, it may not.

    I finished the monthly Jenkins spindle challenge with 182.04 grams of singles spun for the month. The entire 4 ounce braid of Shenandoah colorway purchased at the virtual fiber festival with two small samples of BamHuey, a bamboo/merino blend, and 4 turtles of rare breed fibers, Moorit Shetland and mixed Jacob to round out the month. Now on to ply the Shenandoah Falkland on my wheel in preparation for the November challenge. The scale says 187.04, but I had to subtract the weight of the two plastic cables and two paper tags.

    Another month in the life on the farm with the fading garden, many walks while the weather is nice, lots of spinning, a bit of knitting, and sewing mishaps. The sewing machine that wouldn’t work is being checked out, the new leather band for the antique treadle machine should be here tomorrow and I will finish sewing the masks cut out over the weekend using foot power instead of electricity.

    Stay safe everyone. “Chose science over fiction.” Joe

  • Fiber Intervention

    I don’t need to buy fiber for years. In the past two weeks, I bought Shetland from a friend who is thinning her fiber out, it is about a pound and a half, traded some fiber for some Moorit Shetland, bought the Shenandoah braid and the two 4 ounce bumps of Coopworth from vendor friends at the Shenandoah Virtual Festival. I still had a 4 ounce braid I had bought a couple months ago from Corgi Hill Farms that I was going to spin this fall. Then there are bags of Jacob that I washed from two raw fleeces that I use when I can do living history, and random bags that need labels, each with a few to 4 ounces. My storage cubes don’t hold it all.

    Some sorting, re bagging, and labelling later, it is mostly contained. Some of those books have been shelf weights for too many years and need to be donated to Friends of the Library or the YMCA Thrift shop. That would give me one more bin for storage as the remaining books could go on another shelf or on top.

    Spinning on the spindles will continue with the pretty fibers, making thin yarns that may someday sell or my arthritis will permit knitting lacy knits. Much of the Shetland, Jacob, Coopworth, and a mystery soft brown fiber will be spun thicker, probably on the wheel with the idea of making Monmouth or Freedom caps and proper fingerless gloves to sell at Living History events. I’m leaning toward only doing historical knits for vending in the future. If some of my finer lacey knits ever sell, I may return to making more of them from the colorful yarns.

    Yesterday, I finished the first color band of my Shenandoah braid, about 18 grams spun. Today I will begin on the browns that match the spindle.

    With the first of October and a concession to a changing season, the fall decorations were brought out for display. There are two rotating fall table cloths that are used instead of the daily woven placemats, followed by two Christmas ones.

    The house was damp mopped to try to reduce the dog hair load, they are shedding like it was summer time, and all the wood furniture was given a good clean and wax with a beeswax based polish. It is so futile because within minutes, there is hair everywhere again.

    Tonight, I will have to cover the ground cherries, peppers, and tomatillos to protect them in case we receive frost. The peas that are finally blooming should be okay and the beans are only setting seed at this point, so they will likely be left uncovered. I have had beans survive light frost in the past with just some leaf edge burn. As the weather chills down, each trip into the house requires brushing off the stink bugs that are gathering trying to find entrance. They are heavy this year and if the winter is mild as currently predicted, they will be worse next year. I wish they had a natural predator here.

  • Month Ends, Challenge Begins

    The last quarterly spindle challenge begins tomorrow. I couldn’t sit idle from several days ago when I submitted my end of month total, so I used a top whorl spindle to continue spinning the mixed Jacob roving and spun another 33.55 grams for the month that won’t count, but I had plenty official spun.

    The scale says 35.55, but the ball has a 2 gram felted ball in the middle around which it is wound.

    I will probably go ahead and ply the Jacob on the wheel and leave it on the bobbin until I finish with the almost 3 ounces left of the fiber. I was unsure what I wanted to concentrate on in October until I went to the virtual Shenandoah Fiber Festival and Wild Hare Fiber Studio, one of the vendors I would have sought did a Shenandoah gradient dyed fiber for the weekend. I ordered it, I had to get something significant from it, I also ordered from my friend at Hearts of the Meadow Farms. The Shenandoah was shipped Monday and arrived today and it is the perfect decision for the month.

    The colors toward the center of the braid match the figured Big leaf Maple spindle so well they just go together. The fiber from my friend is white and a white and burgundy which will be nice colors for the cold of December. Yesterday I logged on to Facebook, just in time to see that Yarn Tools website, the ones that make the Jenkins Turkish spindles were having a shop update of spindles in the size I prefer. I’m not usually lucky enough to catch the updates, but I was and purchased a Honduran Rosewood Finch, it is heavier than the Olive Finch I own. Then later in the day, the group update showed they would be having a lottery for the right to buy 1 of 18 spindles. In the lottery, you can select 2 to enter and I put my name in there too for two small spindles. I’m not generally lucky there, but who knows.

    Today we went back to the museum to pick up my knits, yarn, and soaps that didn’t sell. I was pleased to see that I did sell some items and the museum purchased more of my salves as they seem to sell there. In talking to my friend that organizes all of their events, we discussed that two of the hats are really too large. I am toying with whether to run elastic thread through the ribbing or just frog and reknit them. One has a zigzag pattern of colorwork and I may cut it below the zigzag, pick up the stitches, decrease about 10 or 15 stitches and knit the ribbing in reverse to make it better fit a “normal” head but maintain a slightly slouchy top. I have to decide if I am that brave. The other just needs to be frogged and reknit with fewer stitches and/or a smaller needle. That is the only hat in my stock that I actually followed a pattern on.

    Hats don’t usually sell in my Etsy shop, maybe I need a wig model to show them off better.

  • Tools and preparation

    As I finished the fiber from August and September, it empties my tools in preparation for the October challenge. The three Jenkins spindles were emptied, the Bosworth which I can’t use for the challenge was called into play to ply who small turtles of CVM, making 45 yards of 2 ply yarn that will be used as trim. The Jacob that I finished prior to recording my total was joined with a second turtle spun since the reporting and the two were wound into a ply ball and set aside to be added to before it is plied for use.

    The tools in and by this wooden bowl are the ones I use each day, making yarn the slow, meditative way. Sometimes I use purchased prepared roving, sometimes I comb fleece that I washed and once in a while, I just spin from locks.

    The second skein of shiny Shetland/Bombyx was washed and dried. It turned out to be exactly the same yardage and weight as the first skein. I couldn’t do that intentionally if I tried.

    It ended up 933+ yards of lace weight yarn and is now in my shop for sale. It is gorgeous, but I don’t knit with lace weight yarn, though that seems to be what I spin on the spindles.

    Since there are still a few days until I can begin official spinning for the challenge, I will spin on the Bosworth top whorl spindle and just add to the ply ball. The gray ball in the bowl is the Jacob. There will be enough finished yarn when it is all spun, to make a simple watch cap and fingerless mitts.

    And while we talk tools, I attacked the tall thick grass on the riding mower, mowing with the deck set at the highest setting and doing half wide passes. It looks better, but still somewhat rough. We have a couple days of potential rain, then I will go after it again, set at the usual setting and doing full width passes and see if it can be neatened up before cold weather sets in. Some of the areas need to be brush hogged as they are just too tall and too deep for the riding mower.

    We are threatened with widespread frost on Wednesday night. I need to find a solution to protect my fig, ground cherries, tomatillos, and peppers. We should have almost another month before we have to worry about frost. As for the tomatoes, I am going out to pick anything left on the plants. Red ones will go in the freezer, ripening ones set in a window to ripen, and green ones may become green salsa or if slicers, I might enjoy a few more fried green tomatoes. The plants will be pulled and added to the shred/burn pile. The last three sunflower stalks have browned and they also need to be pulled down. Newspaper will be saved to finish the aisles that never were finished in the spring and some sort of mulch applied to hold it in place to hopefully prevent as much growth there as I had this summer. Most of my weeding time was spent on three paths.

    We have given permission to a young man who grew up in the area to bow hunt on our lower field when the season begins next Saturday. He and a buddy put a game camera down in the woods and it lasted two days before a big bear swiped it off the tree. The camera got a photo before and during the swipe. We saw the bear early in the summer, but haven’t seen it since, but it must traverse our woods without us seeing it. In exchange for the permission, he and his brother came over today and re-secured a gutter on the back of the house that had sagged enough that water was pouring over the outer edge in heavy rain. He said they would return and fine tune it if today’s repair was not enough. In the theme of today’s blog, they used my long extension ladder and cordless drill to facilitate the repair.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Lost events

    This weekend marks another lost event and another event at which I will be represented by some of my crafts, but not my person. For several years, we have gone north to the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, spent the weekend at a hotel with lots of social time with Son 1 and his family. Together, we all go to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival, visit a couple of vendor friend, see all the wooly and furry critters, and always leave with goodies. Yarn to knit first birthday sweater’s for a granddaughter that turns 4 this year, a spindle one year, fiber always.

    That yarn became the sweater below for granddaughter.

    Last year I was in the area to help Son 1’s family move into their house and we didn’t go to the festival as there were too many other things on the agenda that weekend.

    This year it is virtual. There is no festival to attend. I have trouble buying fiber or yarn without seeing and feeling it, I don’t need any more spindles or wheels. I will miss the trip, but understand the safety of not holding it during the pandemic.

    The second event is at the Museum where I do living history. They are having a fall festival with reservation only tours of 6 per half hour and 6 allowed to wander the outbuildings and grounds per half hour, but I am still not comfortable staying in a closed area other than my home for any length of time and wearing a mask in costume wouldn’t work, so my crafts are there on an honor system sale, but I’m not. I am hopeful that everyone will be honest and if anything takes a walk without payment, that it is really needed and will be loved.

    We daily check the department of health’s website and see that the number of cases in our rural county have jumped more than 10 fold in about a month. For a very long time, there were only 7 or 8 cases here, then the students came back to the Universities in the area, the public school kids returned to a modified face to face school week, and we now have 88 cases and more reported each day (about 15 of them are public school students and/or staff). That doesn’t sound like a lot, but this is a small rural county with a handful of small towns and villages and no cities. This is also a mask resistant county, so we only go out when necessary and generally go to the next county to a larger town with more mask compliance, where we can get curbside delivery of groceries.

    Today our adventure is to go get our curbside grocery delivery in pouring rain from Beta. I watched the pups this morning go quickly into the rain in belly deep grass to do what pups do first thing in the morning. Last evening, I called and the mowers are ready, but they have to be closed today (not that I want to load mowers in the rain), so we will go over in the morning before they close at noon. The weekend is predicted to be drier, so maybe set on the highest setting, I can reduce the height of the yard growth. We keep putting off going to get the brush hog because we will either have to pay for delivery or I will have to drive the tractor down the mountain road, about a mile down the highway edge, then return trip after we attach it to the tractor. I really should do that and have them change the oil and transmission fluid while they have it, that is a job I haven’t learned to do and have no interest in getting on the ground under the tractor to learn.

    Until the deluge slows to a trickle, the chooks will stay in their coop with food and water. I will have to toss down hay in the run when I can get out there just to keep from sliding down the hill and to help keep them from taking mud baths. Chickens are stupid. I am toying with the idea of repairing the chicken tractor, removing it from the collapsed log raft and setting it on 4 blocks so the chickens can use it as a safe shelter when free ranging. It would give them a place to go if a dog or hawk threaten. There is no floor in it as the log raft was the floor, so they could get up into the perches or dust bathe under it.

    The trees are beginning to color, we are seeing the yellowing of some and reds of some of the “trash” trees. I’m not ready for the woods to be bare yet.

  • Another Glorious Day

    It is clear and crisp, cool enough for a light wool in the mornings and evenings, and a light long sleeved shirt when working outdoors during the day. This is my favorite time of the year, after it cools off, but before it gets cold.

    The Asian Pear Marmalade was made yesterday afternoon. It took forever to cook to jam consistency, but it is thick and a beautiful golden color. The 3 pounds of pears and an orange, filled 4 half pints plus a quarter pint jar with just enough left over to enjoy warm on a biscuit remaining from Friday night’s dinner.

    Last week, I began a ferment of some of the small Eggplants that I had gotten at the Farmer’s Market. It has been sitting on the back of the counter all week with the ferment weight and ferment lid, all covered with a small towel. I hadn’t even peeked at it all week and decided to check it this morning. What a gorgeous color it turned and the ferment is so good. I have to thank a local friend for introducing me to fermented eggplant many years ago, and a distant online friend for reminding me of it now that I ferment so many good foods. I bought zesty salad mix and radishes at the Farmer’s market yesterday and a block of goat milk Feta cheese last week. I think a salad with those items and some of the eggplant and a tomato if I can find a ripe one will be a nice addition to dinner tonight.

    As soon as the morning sun and wind dry the garden leaves, I will pick beans and any other produce ready to come in for the freezer. Soon, the remaining beans will be left to mature and dry to save for planting next year. I have planted this variety for a couple of years and they perform very well here. Last year I didn’t save the seed and had to purchase seed, but bean seed is so easy to save. When the peas start producing, I will harvest to enjoy and also let them mature and dry for saving. Some packages of seed I use have so many seed in them that the package will last two or three years, and some seed is so tiny and difficult to save, I just purchase when I need more. I suspect I will have volunteer tomatillo all over the place next year and have in the past, dug them and relocated them where I wanted them to grow.

    Since my newest spindle arrived during the week, I have been spinning mostly on it to get used to it’s size and weight and because when it spins, the wood grain of the figured Bigleaf Maple makes the most interesting concentric circles, very mesmerizing. This is the second turtle of fiber on it. It would hold a lot, but I am trying to keep the colors of the braid consistent enough that the plied yarn will be similar to the first half of the braid that I finished last month.

  • And There She Goes Again

    Fiber equipment, I think I am settled then stumble on to a spindle or distaff that just yells my name. I keep my flock/herd of spindles to 5, 3 that I use regularly and two that live in my living history basket to demonstrate the different types and styles. If I were doing more living history, which is on hold during the virus, I would likely have several other styles that people could handle. The three I use are all Jenkins Turkish spindles. I have had others, but if I find one that I like the wood more, or the weight is in my preferred range, one leaves for the new one to come. They vary in size from tiny to small with one in the middle. The tiny lives in a 4 ounce tea tin in a custom made drawstring bag in my “take it everywhere” tote and gets used when I’m passenger in the car or waiting in the car during dental or doctor’s appointments. The medium small is my go to spindle, used with my first ring distaff holding my fiber. The new small one is the size I ply on and maybe since this one is lighter than the one I sold, I will be able to spin on it as well. The second distaff is because I have learned to use the ring distaff and it takes strain off of my wrists as I spin, so I wanted a second one to put with the tiny spindle in my bag.

    This is a return to the beginning as I first learned to spin on a drop spindle, long before I purchased and learned to spin on a wheel. It has become more difficult for me to knit without pain, but spindle spinning doesn’t bother me. Now I just need an outlet for the yarn I am creating.

  • Sunday, Sunday

    Our television is in our loft which has three windows plus two double dormer windows across the vaulted ceiling over the living room, so the large open space can be very bright when the shades are up. As a result, the Roman shades on the loft windows stay closed. Yesterday was the first NFL games of the season and hubby had the TV on from 1 p.m. until long after I left for bed. I’m not much of a football fan, or television at all. I played in the garden for as long as the heat and humidity allowed, weeding and harvesting, bringing in a very full basket and an armload of produce and basil.

    I sat at the dining room table and stripped the basil to dry in another basket, sorted out the beans from the peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos. Then brined a quart of Jalapenos, strung the Thai peppers to dry.

    Then filling my iced tea cup, I came up to spin or knit while football played on. I mentioned that the shades stay drawn so there is no glare on the TV which makes for poor lighting for knitting, but it was just basic ribbing on for the bottom of a grand daughter’s sweater. I alternated knitting a few rows, then spun some yardage on the spindles. The old wrist break and the arthritis it has caused, prevents me from knitting for very long any more. Spinning on the spindles doesn’t seem to bother it.

    After the first game series ended, I went down to make hubby’s favorite meal, homemade enchiladas and tacos which involves frying tortillas into taco shape, shredding cheese, dicing onion, making the enchilada sauce, so a fairly intensive and time consuming meal, as the football games continued above.

    After the meal was completed and cleaned up, left over beans, sauce, and taco meat packaged up for the freezer, I returned to the loft. Only I put on my headphones to block the games and continued with my crafts. As it got darker and more difficult to see what I was doing, I realized that three rows back, about half a round in, I made an error, knitting when I should have purled and thus the ribbing was messed up. Too tired to continue with it and not wanting to try to rip back three rows and picking up 134 stitches in the dark room, I tossed it in my basket, spun for a while longer and retired to bed with my book.

    This morning in the brighter light, I surveyed the damage.

    For some odd reason, it was half a round and only in the row down three rows, so this morning, I dropped each stitch back three rows one at a time and picked them back up correctly. It may have taken longer to do that than to just frog three rows and pick up the stitches, but the yarn is superwash, so slick, the knit not very tight and I didn’t want to risk having to frog all 2 1/2″ and starting over. At any rate, I can continue knitting the rib for another half inch then begin on the body of the sweater. This sweater has a pouch and hood like a hoodie sweatshirt, so the fiddly pouch will have to be picked up soon. I have knit this sweater at least a dozen times in various sizes for daughter and her kiddos, but that pouch always causes me pause, plus I need two needles the same size and only have 1 so I will borrow one from daughter, after all, the sweater is for her daughter.

    The eggplant purchased at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday was salted, wept, and brined to ferment on the counter for several days. I had fermented eggplant a few years ago at a fiber retreat, it was made by a friend and I hadn’t thought about it for a while until an online friend made some. Since eggplant is like a sponge and absorbs flavors, I used fresh basil, fresh oregano, minced Thai and serano peppers, and crushed garlic to flavor it. It should be delicious in a salad with Mediterranean food in a few days.